This is my personal history with the Tabernacle Choir on Temple Square (formerly the Mormon Tabernacle Choir) written for my family and friends.
I'm following the example of a fellow choir member who is also keeping a blog about his experience. You can read his stuff on
www.journeybehindthenotes.blogspot.com
Someone asked me if I was a man or if I sing tenor. I told them I sing bass and they said, "Oh, you're a man." hahaha. Well, I'm a man. I'm a bass and I sing in the choir.
The line into the Tabernacle for an evening performance was huge.
I felt like people at ACDA were "My People." It was, by far, the best "conference" I have ever attended.
The age range of people attending the conference began with children all the way up to old people. I have never attended a conference where people of all ages attended. It was like Comic Con for music nerds. I loved it.
The weather was a bit chilly but still warm for the entire conference. One day of snow but overall great weather.
I attended a lot of performances during the week. The talent in Salt Lake City was beyond anything I can describe. Excellent concerts all day long for multiple days. It was also great to interact with them in person and through social media. My choice for interaction was through twitter and instagram. It was amazing to meet people I also follow on Twitter.
Here are just a few pics. I really should get a phone with a better camera though.
The conductor competition was intense and interesting to watch.
The Salt Palace had so many booths and displays.
The choir had a booth at the Salt Palace where people could sing the last verse of Amazing Grace in front of a green screen with the choir put in later. Very cool.
When I was visiting the Salt Palace I was standing by the choir booth watching. There was a hilarious video of three guys who "sang with the choir" while doing a routine. Hilarious. I also saw two large groups of people daring each other to do it. One group was particularly shy but wanted to do it. The teasing was relentless and eventually both groups signed up. I watched them and just laughed as their discomfort turned into an attitude of "let's have fun." It was seriously fun.
I talked to a lot of people during the week. I mentioned I was from Salt Lake but I did not put my name tag on display openly. (Our name tags allowed us entrance to performances and workshops.) I was interested in the stories of our visitors. Everyone was so open and friendly.
I had lunch by a table of people from Germany on Thursday. I listened to them talk (I didn't understand) but focused on mouth and lip placement and of the words they were forming. I kept thinking of us singing in German and how we worked on pronunciation. It was really neat to see and meet people from around the world.
Here is a video of a performance of the National Honor Choir during a rehearsal from Yoomi Choe on Youtube. I'd post more video but no video recording of actual performances were allowed (even though some people still video taped them). Out of respect for those rules and those groups I will not post them here. It's too bad some of these things were not recorded because a lot of the things I saw were absolutely AMAZING. (nod to the Koreans)
I left every performance and class inspired and motivated to be better. Why in the world aren't Mental Health Conferences more like this? I'm so glad to have had this opportunity to be immersed in such awesomeness.
